


who we are in the dark

by Nununununu



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Caretaking, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Light Angst, M/M, Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Reunions, Slow Burn, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:48:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27642991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nununununu/pseuds/Nununununu
Summary: Din hasn’t been able to stop thinking about this.A reunion, to start.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Cobb Vanth
Comments: 66
Kudos: 281





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Some AU backstory and headcanon for Vanth. Set sometime after episode 9, canon divergent from then

Din hasn’t been able to stop thinking about this.

Thinking about stepping in close, running his hand over the flat plane of Vanth’s stomach through the man’s clothes; that long slender stretch of abdomen that had been left unprotected by the armour that hadn’t been his, but had sat so well on him all the same – not fitting properly, yes, but somehow all the more eye catching for it in a way that Din shouldn’t be fool enough to notice in the first place, let alone contemplate.

And yet contemplate he does, all the way to Mos Pelgo despite knowing better, the child sleeping while the desert around them is limned in moonlight and untouched by their passing, the small body tucked beneath the top of Din’s loosened cuirass in against his chest. The speeder’s steady and familiar beneath him, the Razor Crest back in Mos Eisley, Peli and her droids seeing to a few things best not to ignore. The lead’s flimsy but real, about as real as any of them are, although he’d be a fool twice over to pretend his ribs hadn’t tightened a little at the prospect of going back.

Really, there is no point in thinking about it. Just as he could skirt Mos Pelgo and keep on going – there’s nothing there for the two of them, or so he should think. Shouldn’t he? The kid hadn’t seemed to mind the place – had seemed desperate to play with the few local kids they’d spied round and about, in fact, although the risk of another visit from the dragon had put paid to that – and, well, it’s somewhere they were welcome, more so towards the end of it, and there aren’t many places out there that qualify as that.

He’s aware these are excuses.

There’s more awake out in the desert at night than it seems. Their passing doesn’t go unnoticed, bandits making a cursory pass at one point it’s no hassle to evade, while beasts raise their heads in curiosity or scuttle away in concern. Tuskens calling out a low challenge and warning that changes into recognition and greeting as he returns one in kind. Din doesn’t slow though, doesn’t stop, and could tell himself that this is because of the child, because he wants to get the kid into a proper bed for once, somewhere the little one can actually sleep without interruption, but there’s no guarantee of it especially at such a late hour, and while this is true, it’s also not the only truth.

The stars are countless up overhead, yet fading just at the edges in a way that heralds a few hours until morning, exhaustion something Din feels under all the plates of his armour and all through his bones as they draw within sight of Mos Pelgo and he kills the engine of the speeder, not wanting to wake anyone or cause alarm. The little town’s silent, homes unlit and barred against the cold and the dark, only a brief glow of – something not too far off, a faint light that indicates weaponry, until it too goes out.

Doesn’t mean the weapon’s been put away, though. Din’s visor only picks up any sign of one person out and about – the weapon’s owner, still holding the thing in their hand as they turn back from the direction they were heading in to begin making their way instead towards him – and he inhales shallowly at the sight of their body heat and the shape it implies. Tells himself he could be wrong. But his instincts are good, or at least there’s a tightening of his belly that wants him to _think_ that they are.

He shouldn’t be feeling so wound up at the prospect of –

He shouldn’t be feeling wound up.

Still, as he pushes the bike into town so not to wake anyone, there’s a tremor of – something – within him, a kind of tightness that’s not easy to ignore; a flutter of anticipation he should back away from right now.

They shouldn’t have come here; he knows that. But the child stirs sleepily against Din’s chest, small hand drifting over Din’s heart through his top, and he takes a breath in, drawing in what he can of the cold scent of the desert that’s like not quite like anything else on any other planet he’s experienced. Cancelling the night vision on the HUD and just watching as a shape solidifies out from the darkness behind one of the buildings, and then there’s Vanth, hair and shoulders licked over by that starlight, jumping down off a porch into the sand.

“Why hey there, stranger,” He gets a crooked grin as soon as the man is close enough to talk, Vanth holstering his blaster, calling quietly across the space left between them. Saying that word, _stranger_ , in a way that sounds much like it could mean _friend_.

Din can’t speak.

\--

“Didn’t expect to see you back again so soon,” Vanth glances down at the saddlebags before lifting an eyebrow, pacified when Din raises a hand to his cuirass to indicate the kid.

His grin crooking further, Vanth leans in a little as if to see before stopping himself, as if perhaps considering it a boundary Din might be offended if crossed; as if in silent respect for Din’s personal space.

Din wants to close that distance, wants to bridge it himself. Feels the child’s peaceful breathing against him, the little warmth curled up next to his restless heart.

He shouldn’t be feeling restless at this late hour. Vanth takes hold of some of the saddlebags without speaking, although there’s a look to his expression that asks permission all the same; a certain rise of his brow Din nods to slightly, just to indicate it’s okay. They don’t discuss Din’s destination; he just resumes pushing the speeder and they fall into step as if it’s already decided, Vanth leading the way almost subtly; just a slight turn to a step here to indicate a change of direction, a faint tip of his head.

“Quiet night?” Din asks when they’ve been walking a while, and while it feels like the answer’s obvious given the silence of the town around them, it’s not what he means.

He gets a nod and a hum of agreement, “Quiet night,” and then it feels like the words drain out of them again. Din finds himself wanting to glance at Vanth from the corner of his visor; wants to turn his head to see him better; wants to seek out that starlight in that grey hair and the glint of it in those eyes.

He feels almost stifled with everything inside him, just seeing the man again.

“I didn’t mean –” Din says without intending to when they reach their destination, a small home much like any of the others Vanth identifies with a tip of his chin that takes Din back to when they first met, when Vanth held a finger up to gesture for him to wait.

Din’s the one asking to wait now. Or his feet are anyway, coming to a stop at the side of the building where it seems like there’s a space just waiting for him to park the bike.

There is no space waiting for him. It’s just a space. But Vanth waits for him, hooking his thumbs into his belt, brow wrinkling as he looks at Din, giving him room to finish the sentence that’s stalled on Din’s tongue.

“I don’t want to put you out,” Din says instead.

“And who said you would be?” Is the answer he gets, and a smile for his trouble as well that he frankly doesn’t deserve, having turned up at such an hour uninvited and unannounced.

The child murmurs, little claws scratching at his chest through the fabric of his clothes. Din takes half a breath in; lets it out – the kid’s dreaming. He places his hand over the top of his cuirass, over the metal shielding and protecting the kid’s tiny head, aware of Vanth watching him do this while he waits. It feels.

It feels like, in a way –

Like Din’s waiting for him too. Like they’re waiting for each other, perhaps, but this could just be him.

It could all just be him. Still.

“All right,” Din says, like they’ve had a whole conversation in the time he’s failed to answer – and maybe they have, as Vanth just resettles the saddlebags on his shoulder, keys in a code on the door panel and looks at Din as it swings open, his gaze half inviting and half almost challenging. Perhaps expecting him to seek to back away again.

Din sees to the speeder and then, swallowing dryly, follows him in.

\--

Little of the starlight makes it inside Vanth’s home.

“Spare bedroom’s that way,” Vanth speaks lowly. Quieter than he did outside, yet it feels louder because of the enclosed area, the nearness of the walls, “Food and drink in the pantry for tomorrow – hell, or for now, if you’re hungry. Enough water to use for a bath for the kid in the morning – should be a bowl the right size for it under the sink, unless he’s grown much.”

He sounds tired too, but there’s something else there as well. Din’s worn out enough it’s hard to read. Distracted by the tension in his belly; the fact it feels like Vanth is so close, even halfway across the indeterminate room as he is, yet seemingly set to slip away back into what’s left of the night.

“Where are you going?” He doesn’t need to ask this. Does anyway. Just to get him to stay those few seconds more.

“Back on patrol,” Vanth scrubs a hand through that hair of his, the movement just visible through the dark. Din’s fingers prickle inside his gloves as if his skin feels an echo of the imagined touch. They’re two deeper shadows here underground, within these walls.

He doesn’t imagine what those fingers would feel like moving through his own hair. Can’t.

Certainly shouldn’t.

“Don’t reckon I’ll be sleeping tonight,” Vanth confirms – perhaps he feels the need to linger too, given he isn’t leaving yet, partly turned to do so as he is, “But you make the most of it. You’ll find a critter skull on the shelf near the couch to your right, if you want it. Refresher and pantry don’t have a lock, so stick it on the floor outside any room you’re in and I’ll know to keep out of it when I get back. Stick it outside if you want the run of the whole of the place, and I’ll take another walk.” There’s the faint scritch of him rubbing his beard, “Jo used to use it as code when she hid out here from her siblings, back when she got real bad headaches. Folks’ll know not to move it and those who know the key code won’t come in. We can change that in the morning, if you’re planning to stick around for a bit.”

A question there Din should answer. Doesn’t.

Can’t, not yet. Because he shouldn’t be here in the first place.

“Jo –” No, he knows that name; stops the sound of it before it can emerge. Too young for Vanth surely, although Din’s known more of an age gap between partners.

Partners. Vanth had called him that.

It’s irrelevant. No matter that it doesn’t feel like it – that’s unimportant.

It doesn’t feel unimportant.

Refocusing, Din tries to push the dull throb of tiredness out of his skull, the tangled knot of something not quite as precise as _want_ out of his stomach and chest.

“Thank you,” He says when what he also means is _why are you doing this_. The child stirs again against his chest, and he murmurs under his breath in response to the gentle, nonverbal tug to his thoughts, like the kid’s sleep is trying to pull him under as well.

“Go on,” The other man says almost gently, like he can sense this, like he can sense how Din’s only on his feet because if he sits down he might not succeed in standing back up again after, and Din gets to watch him finish turning away. Vanth climbing back up the steps and out of his home, Din’s gaze catching for a moment on the other man’s shoulders, the tapering span of his back – what he can see of it. A glimpse of Vanth’s heels, picking up the starlight outside as he opens the door.

Din shouldn’t pay heed to anything else, in between; there’s nowhere else on the other man’s body his gaze should seek to linger or that should occupy his thoughts. It shouldn’t, but.

The darkness swallows it anyway.

\--

He sleeps.

Learns the dimensions of Vanth’s home first, though he avoids opening the door that leads to the master bedroom. Just gets to know the layout enough to be familiar with the ways they could leave if necessitated; of how things might go down if something happens and it comes to a fight. If there’s another beast like the dragon; if there’s an unexpected threat.

So often there’s an unexpected threat.

Din’s been to a few safe houses in his time – most of them didn’t turn out that safe in the end. But there’s something that feels disarmingly _lived in_ about the other man’s place, even in the low light of Din’s helmet on its dimmest setting. Something a little unreal about it too and Din can’t help feeling like a trespasser, can’t help but feel like he doesn’t belong.

This is because he doesn’t belong.

He finds some kind of basket to set the kid down in, figuring that their host won’t mind, padding it with a clean folded towel for a mattress and then a blanket, and then another to swaddle the still sleeping child. Din’s chest feels colder for the loss of the little one’s warmth. He goes to fasten up his cuirass and pauses, or his hands do, quelling the temptation to look around the room again.

No one’s going to burst in.

Din hasn’t put the skull outside, hasn’t wanted to step out for the knowledge that the step will lead him into doing the sensible thing and leaving. Into getting back onto the speeder and heading back into the desert, pushing on through the last few hours before the suns rise. He’s done it before; Vanth’s doing it now. Din wonders how much the man sleeps, if he dreams. If he often stays up to watch the stars fade and Tatooine’s twin suns climb up into the sky. Imagines the bed in that master bedroom and an indent left from Vanth’s body upon it, moulded into the mattress from many years’ use. The scent of Vanth’s hair on the pillowcase.

Din’s helmet provides the ability to break down and analyse a variety of scents. It also largely prevents him from actually _smelling_ them, dulling down the input to his own nose even as it provides the information in other ways; a simple unfiltered stimulus it only rarely occurs to him to consciously miss.

It occurs to him now. What would it be like to graze his nose against those grey strands and inhale?

Perhaps hair doesn’t smell of anything at all. It doesn’t seem likely he’ll find out.

Placing the child carefully in his nest in the basket, Din soothes his hand over the little one’s head before brushing out the wrinkles in the swaddling blanket. Looks at a small hand, slowly uncurling, and thinks of resting the back of a finger against the tiny palm. Of feeling those little fingers tightening reflexively around his.

His child. In a sense, although he tries not to think it that often. The child. They will be parted either way, when the time comes.

Whether, deep down, he wants that time to come or not is something else that should be irrelevant.

The bed in the spare bedroom shouldn’t be daunting. Din shouldn’t climb in under the covers with his helmet still on and consider removing it. Of pressing his cheek to the pillow, of inhaling, of wondering whether Vanth has ever slept in this bed. Why would he?

Jo. Jo perhaps slept here.

Jo perhaps slept in Vanth’s bed. This isn’t –

This isn’t an issue. Din isn’t jealous; why would he be? Just a little lonely, perhaps.

He’s not alone. The sound of the child breathing is an undeniable comfort; it makes his eyelids heavy and seek to sink. There’s a strange feeling settling inside him, one that’s a little painful; something that’s a bit like relief. It’s not often they’re safe like this.

He shouldn’t. He shouldn’t feel lonely. Shouldn’t think of having Vanth here or, better, of slipping into the man’s own bed, the one he actually uses. Shouldn’t think of shifting in close to him; of resting his hand on the other man’s chest. Of tucking his head onto Vanth’s shoulder.

No.

Din’s simply tired. He’s been tired for so long. His body feels strange without the weight of his armour, only compounded by the fact he’s lying down, not propped against a wall or on his seat in the cockpit of the Razor Crest. The mattress is big enough he can stretch out across it, the opposite of curling up in his little berth on the ship. It feels undeniably strange to kick his legs out and not bang his knees into the wall, the sheets catching at his ankles. He already knows he’ll dream.

Perhaps in an attempt to delay this, he imagines Vanth curling in close behind him, fingers curving over Din’s hip as Din lies on his side; two spoons in a drawer. The warmth of Vanth’s hand resting against his stomach, then brushing his throat, dipping down to his chest. A thumb grazing a nipple.

Din’s breath comes shallower; his body tries to fight off unconsciousness. If it does this too much, he risks sleep paralysis, something he’s had to train himself out of. Had to train himself not to panic when it happened as a kid.

The urge is still there at the memory of it – to panic. It’s partly the memories that come with it, unstoppably and relentless – of being trapped somewhere, with someone watching him. His parents. Kuiil. IG-11. It’s like the friendly dead come to silently visit when he’s caught there, frozen, his body asleep while his mind flounders.

He’s never caught sight of them yet, though he feels their presence sharply all the same.

The other dead come crowding in on Din when he can sleep – faces, sometimes; names. Information on pucks, dictated in Karga’s voice. Those he’s killed. Intentionally, anyway; he killed some of those friendly dead, too. He doesn’t waste time on regretting the former when he’s awake.

He imagines taking Vanth off-world instead. Has the man left his home planet before? Din can suspect, but can’t presume. He imagines taking Vanth up through the atmosphere, the child sitting on the other man’s lap; up through the thick blinding heat of Tatooine’s twin suns and into the vast depthless arena of space.

Imagines what he might look like then; what he might say.

It’s entirely possible Vanth might not want this.

\--

Din wakes up hard.

While it’s not entirely an uncommon problem, it’s made more uncomfortable by the fact he needs to piss. The kid is fretting too, which is no doubt what woke him, and the little one’s proximity goes a long way towards getting his body back under control. Din presses his eyes tighter closed for a moment, reminds himself why this is unacceptable, and then he’s able to reach out for the child without qualm, his awareness of his body only peripheral to his mind, its reaction dampening down.

He doesn’t pick the child up, not yet; won’t until things are back to baseline. But he smooths the ball of his thumb over the furrows in that little brow, murmuring without words beneath his breath, listening to the quiet of a place they haven’t slept in before now filling the air around them.

The child sinks back down into sleep and Din slips out from under the covers, stubs his toe on something and grits his teeth, fumbling a little at first as he navigates his way out of the spare bedroom to the refresher without turning on the light.

There’s a sliver of gold coming from under the master bedroom door. Vanth must have returned after all; Din’s belly tightens when a shadow briefly interrupts that light.

The glow of it isn’t really that much, but it catches and holds his attention when the shadow passes across it once again. Din’s throat filled with the knowledge that Vanth is still awake, just as he predicted, and just the other side of that door, perhaps pacing, perhaps fetching something.

If Din were to knock on the door, they could speak – quietly, so not to disturb the child. He finishes his trek to the refresher instead, moving slowly to ensure it’s soundless, only realising he’s trembling very slightly by the time he’s washing his hands.

It’s just exhaustion; he hasn’t slept nearly enough. Heading back to the spare bedroom, Din questions what they’re doing here, questions why he’s imposing himself and the child on Vanth. Tells himself they’ll leave first light. Go on after that lead, flimsy as it is; as they should.

He already knows they won’t.

\--

Not yet. That becomes a mantra when Din wakes up a second time, the child standing directly in front of his head on the pillow, patting him on the helmet and whining the moment Din stirs, the blows growing more insistent.

“Quit it,” He keeps his voice gentle. Pokes a finger lightly against the child’s tummy right after to show he’s not cross, the tiny hand going down to wrap around it in response.

The child whines and opens and closes his mouth slightly in one of the many ways he has of saying _hungry_. His clothes are also travel worn, stained on the collar by whatever the last thing was he gobbled down. Something with too many legs and stubby wings that scrabbled and sought to escape until it was halfway down. How the child digests this stuff Din doesn’t know, but the kid had beamed and burped in satisfaction after, and Din had huffed beneath his helmet as it had been either that or laugh.

“Bah,” The kid tells him now, in the way that means _breakfast_ and _get up_ and _look,_ and plonks himself down on his ass as hard as he can, giggling when this causes him to bounce a little on the mattress.

“Bah!” He clambers back to his feet before repeating the trick, tumbling back down. _Look at me!_

“Yeah, I see you,” Din gives due attention to this performance, and the child pats his hand, as if in appreciation of this acknowledgement of his skills. Before he thinks about it, Din presses his hand down on the mattress himself, harder than the kid is able, making it rock more beneath the little one, who grasps hold of his thumb in both hands and squeals.

It’s a happy sound. Din has him near jumping as best as those little legs can – ‘jumping’, anyway, and beaming with delight – by the time that tiny belly lets out a gurgle and his own near enough does the same.

There’s a more insistent _breakfast!_ in the child’s babbling this time, the game done.

“Okay, okay – and then a wash,” A decided lack of grumble in his voice, Din scopes out the small room in what light comes in from the narrow windows set high up on one wall. It appears much as it did by torchlight last night, except for the detail of a couple of pictures he missed on the wall behind the bed. By a local artist, perhaps, and depicting the desert on both accounts, Tatooine’s moons hanging huge over the one set at night. There’s confidence but also a sort of loneliness somehow in the shadows and edges of the painting, in the broad strokes. “We’ll get you something.”

The child knows, as soon as they reach the bedroom door, that someone else is present in this new place they’re in. His hand goes out to touch the door, ears quivering as he glances up a Din, dark eyes opening wide in question.

Din listens to the quiet sounds of movement out there beyond the spare bedroom, and nods.

“Aaaaaah?” The child eases to begin with through the small gap Din opens up between door and frame, not enough to show him as well as the little one, should Vanth happen to look up. He’s wearing his helmet, but –

It’s not that that stays his hand from opening the door any further.

“Ahhh!” The kid seems to recognise Vanth at once, despite the fact the man’s back is turned as he stands across the other side of the room, washing something in a shallow bowl of water to one side of the sink. A narrow kitchen area set next to the low door Din had confirmed as the pantry the night before.

“Hm?” Vanth turns at once at the sound, blinking, his hands still wet and a wide smile breaking out on his face, crinkling all the lines on his brow and around his eyes, and Din almost takes half a step back at the sight of the sunlight falling onto the man’s hair and slipping over his shoulders, striping the dusky reddish brown shirt he wears. It’s a different one, one that has polished buttons going down from collar to belt, and Din’s fingers twitch fractionally inside his gloves as they seek to inform him of a sort of sense-memory – one he doesn’t know yet, if he ever will – that of the feel of undoing each of those buttons, one by one, slowly, his gaze lingering on the widening line of skin he’s exposing.

It’s foolish, this want.

Vanth’s already starting to crouch down on one knee to scoop the child up as the little one scurries over to him, tiny hands up in entreaty. Pausing just before the kid barrels into his arms to glance up at Din.

“This all right? Me touching him.”

Din can’t make his voice work this time either. Those eyes seem to see right into him despite his helmet and armour, Vanth knowing immediately where to look to meet Din’s gaze. Although –

He isn’t, is he.

Not truly. Not mutually. Vanth has no way of knowing they’re making eye contact. Din forces his body into motion, into bringing his chin down in a nod, “Yes.”

“Great,” The little one’s already tucking himself in against Vanth’s lowered hands, wriggling in impatience as he waits to be held. He doesn’t have to wait long. His grin deepening even further, Vanth scoops him up, swiping up something off the counter next to the bowl at the same time – a slice of some sort of fruit he goes to deposit into the little one’s hands. Another glance at Din, “He can eat anything, right?”

The child is already tucking in, near getting Vanth’s finger alongside the fruit.

“He eats anything,” Din agrees, a little huskiness to his voice the modulator in his helmet thankfully smooths out. Then, “Except most vegetables. If he can get meat instead.”

“A carnivore, huh,” Vanth has the child tucked into one arm, in against the side of his hip. Free hand passing over another piece of fruit, “But you like this too, yeah? And you like milk?” The child gurgles excitedly as Vanth takes a few steps over towards the exit to his home, where there’s a bucket with a lid resting over it that doesn’t match, “Got some from the market next town over for you nice and early, just in case.” He kneels down with the child on his lap, and allows the child the illusion of helping push the lid off, seemingly unbothered when the little one’s next action is to dunk his whole arm into the milk within the bucket, sleeve and all, “Didn’t want to let it sit out in the sunlight too long.”

Din can’t precisely recall when he pushed open the door to the spare bedroom the rest of the way or when he stepped into the main room. But his feet come to a halt on the floor now. Vanth had done that for his child?

“No, no, don’t drink so quickly,” Vanth is chuckling, the kid attempting to stick his entire head into the bucket next, feet kicking in delight as Vanth adjusts his grip to ensure the little one doesn’t launch himself bodily into the bucket, “Come on kid, let’s get you a cup. You want caf?”

This last part is to Din. He nods, although in honesty Vanth could have said anything and he’d have responded just the same.

“You like kids,” Thankfully he manages to make it sound like an observation rather than a question, even as he curses himself, the answer obvious enough.

“Sure,” Vanth doesn’t seem to think him an idiot, at least, “Did a stint at the local school before becoming marshal, along with a couple other jobs; sometimes still do. Teach them all sorts of useful stuff.”

“Like what?” Din’s drawn in despite himself; drawn in a step as well.

Vanth’s attention lingers part on him and part on the child as he stands back up from the bucket, grimacing at the creak of his knees, and returns to the kitchen to fetch the cup for the child, watching as the little one wraps his hands around it, “Now you tell me if you’re good or not with that. Not too heavy?”

The child burbles his approval, so Vanth takes it back again only to fill it up with milk, sitting both kid and cup at the table after, before fetching another two cups from the same cabinet and collecting a canister that promises caf.

“Like how to hit a target,” Vanth answers belatedly, a little distracted now as he prepares the other drinks, portioning off most of the fruit onto a plate and the remaining pieces onto another, taking a packet of something that resembles flat bread out of a different cabinet and adding the contents to the first one, “How to patch up an engine or tell if it’s going to blow, and work out which way the weather’ll most likely turn, if the desert’s in a good mood. What it’s best to do if it’s not. Take them out on the dunes and let them get lost a little; watch over them to make sure they get back. Basic things. We’ve got a lot of orphans. Folks take them in and do their best, but.” A lopsided shrug, “It all bears repeating.” He shoots a grin over at Din, “You reckon I was going to say learning their letters? ‘Cause in truth I never had the chance to do much of that myself as a kid, and I still don’t do so well at it now.”

“You look after foundlings,” Din stands very still as Vanth draws nearer to place one of the cups of caf on the table, as far as it can get from the child. The impetus starting to build within him to collect the cup once Vanth has drawn back and to cradle it in his gloved hands, feeling the steam rise beneath the lip of his helmet.

He doesn’t judge the words as well as he should, because Vanth sends him an uninterpretable look.

“Me?” His voice changes subtly too, “Yeah, I used to.” The child coos an enquiry, leaving off the dregs of his milk to look up at him, and Vanth strokes a tapered ear. His long fingers gentle and steady, although Din sees his Adam’s apple move as he swallows before he repeats, softer, “Used to.” He finds a smile for the child, “Three of them, a while back. Not anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” Din can read what’s not said; can feel the weight of it crowding the room. Vanth avoiding his gaze, though he’s being subtle about it; turning back to collect and pass over the larger of the plates.

“Here, you both get on and eat,” He’s already looking to the exit, picking up the remaining plate and his own cup, “I’m going to go sit out on the roof. Got some work to do soon, but. If you need me, just holler. If you set off, well. Just holler as well, if you will.”

Din’s left in the abrupt silence of the room after, interrupted only by the child’s whine.

“Yeah,” Din grimaces faintly behind his helmet, rubbing his thumb around that small round mouth to clear a little mess from the milk and fruit. He’d screwed that one up.


	2. Chapter 2

Din sees the child cleaned up after breakfast. Making use of the clean bowl found as promised under the sink, rubbing a narrow bar of soap from one of the saddlebags between bare palms to make a handful of bubbles to scatter on the surface for the kid to play with while they last, the little one squealing with laughter as he pops them with each splash.

Din rinses out the kid’s grubby clothes after, while the water’s still clean, and then finds another few things that need scrubbing stuffed in a pocket, the child wrapped in clean towels and content to roll around in them on the floor while he works. A fresh outfit for the little one once that’s done, the only other one the kid owns – and that’s something Din needs to see about, really, as they frankly don’t own enough – and then a quick scrub in the sonic for himself while the child investigates a vetted selection of the contents of the saddlebags, Din extracting his own sole set of spare clothes before they’re chewed. Leaves the door to the refresher cracked open a fraction so he can keep an ear out for the kid; the helmet in place until the last moment, when he takes a couple of minutes to wash his hair and face with that gap firmly closed.

His heart’s still beating too fast by the time his head is enclosed in familiar metal again, and not only because the kid spent it unobserved. But the child just coos at him when Din opens the door back up again in automatic search, plonked on top of his damp towels in the middle of the main room, busy gnawing at the strap to one of the bags.

All of this takes less than an hour maximum, including eating breakfast, and even then a part of Din can’t deny the fact it feels like stalling.

It isn’t stalling; it’s necessary, and he’s unsure Vanth would find his presence welcome right now besides. Still, self-directed annoyance clogs Din’s throat throughout, the knowledge he unintentionally blundered nagging at him under his skin.

It wasn’t his fault. He knows this rationally, just as he knows Vanth holds no hard feelings about it. Tells himself. Surely Vanth doesn’t. But the man’s absence doesn’t sit right, shut out of his own home regardless of whether the skull of the creature’s set out or not, and Din pushes down the temptation to wonder how long Vanth sat on that roof – or is still sitting – eating the meagre amount of fruit he took.

The kid’s drunk most of the remaining milk when Din finishes straightening the wet clothes hung out over the top of a chair for lack of anywhere else to put them, shaking out wrinkles that indicate their previous status as temporary aids to a game that’s now been forgotten. Put them outside and they’ll be covered in sand. The little one’s leaning over the almost emptied bucket, streaked and soggy up to his elbows all over again with milk, his face a wet mess except for the breadth of his smile. What had Vanth used to buy the stuff? Or traded for it?

Whether he can afford to feed Din and the child on top of himself is something Din would need to address if they were to – do as Vanth had enquired without saying as much. That is, if they were to stick around _._ Here, like this, for a bit. Not to have a conversation about it, perhaps – the other man’s got his pride, just as Din has, and he has no wish to cause their host offense. But.

If they were to stick around.

What a thing to almost let himself think. To almost let himself consider. Of course they’re not going to stay. Can’t. Mustn’t.

Should not.

Din very carefully doesn’t allow himself to ponder the length of time Vanth might consider _a bit_. Cleans the child’s face and arms with a warm damp cloth instead.

\--

Vanth is gone from the roof when they step outside. Din knew he would be, or suspected it. It’s fine.

It’s not fine. But the impulse to track the man down – if not to ‘holler’ – is not one he should countenance. Nor is it one he should consider entertaining. Still, the child in Din’s arms opens and closes his tiny hands, whining, small soft head turning from side to side as if searching, and Din feels a sort of tug to his shins that gets him walking out into the bright sunlight of the desert morning before he knows it, a nudge to his body undirected by his mind.

“You’re not allowed to use your abilities like that,” Din keeps his voice calm, “Not on me or any of our allies.” Strokes his thumb over the top of the kid’s head just once to draw attention to his words; looks at the little one straight on when the child turns to consider the helmet.

Like Vanth, the kid also unerringly makes eye contact. With the latter however, it feels much like he might well be truly seeing through the visor at times.

Now isn’t one of them. The long ears quiver and the tiny nose twitches, and then palms start patting Din’s arm in the demand for release. Huffing, Din steps off the porch and then stoops to deposit the child in the sand of the street, the little one scuttling off at once towards the lizard he’s spotted, squealing in joy at the chase.

It’s still early out and not a bad day for it, the suns that bit kinder as such, although the darkness of Din’s clothing and the beskar still work together to trap the heat. In harsher conditions he can adjust the settings of the electronics within his cuirass to offset some of it, although doing so can threaten to overtax the systems in a fight, and so he simply pushes aside his awareness of any discomfort his body may experience with the ease of long habit instead, something he is similarly accustomed to doing in situations where the presence of others makes it impossible to eat or drink.

Walking through town draws attention, as it does wherever he goes, but for all Din is conscious he will be recognised, he doesn’t expect the smiles that break out on faces that looked unused to such expressions back when he and the child first came to Mos Pelgo. Most of the inhabitants are busy with their own tasks, but call out greetings or raise a hand, and it would be a little overwhelming in honesty, if Din allowed himself to acknowledge this.

He can’t stop waiting for the smiles to drop and reality to set in. But instead of shouting or shooting breaking out or enemies appearing from out in the desert, instead one woman nudges a much older one and they disappear into a dwelling, only to hasten back out again, bringing with them a lidless crate almost flowing over with what looks very much like a patchwork jumble of toys.

“The child,” They hold back from approaching until he nods, “You have him with you? Would you – Would he like these?”

It’s so unexpected Din almost fails to react.

“Over there,” He regains himself after a moment. The little one’s around a corner; they only need follow the giggles, a gaggle of local kids assisting him in tracking down his second breakfast before they head off to school, “Why don’t you ask him.”

And so Din gets to watch the younger of the two women kneel down next to the kid and offer him the contents of the crate, while the little one comes to stand close to Din’s ankle as if similarly needing a moment to comprehend, his eyes huge in his head.

Little fingers twitch along with his ears as one of the older kids explains that this is their mother and their great-grandmother, and that the local school made up a collection after the krayt dragon’s defeat, where each of the kids stitched together a toy just in case the new friend they hoped to make came back. And if he didn’t come back, they were going to find a way to send the toys to him or so they hoped – they just hadn’t hit on a method yet.

The mother gives Din a look he suspects might be apology, as if she’s concerned this is going too far; as if she knows how impossible this would have been, or how unlikely it was he and the child would return. But here they are, and so here are the toys.

Din can only watch his child as the little one creeps forwards an inch or two, murmuring wordlessly, blinking up at the small crowd all looking at him, his gazing travelling from face to face and then back down to the contents of the crate in fascination and mounting hope.

“Go on,” Crouching down briefly, Din gives him a gentle nudge, “They’re for you.” There’s that lump back again clogging his throat. He wants –

He doesn’t know what he wants, but there’s a glimpse of a dusky reddish brown shirt as Din straightens back up, and there’s Vanth, leaning tipped against a wall a short distance from the little crowd, his arms folded, standing in what slim shadow the morning provides. Gives Din a smile that’s crooked to the extent he might be biting the inside of his cheek, before transferring his gaze onto the kid, something brimming and unfamiliar much like grief and fondness and tenderness all at once wrapped up in his eyes.

Din wants to slip past the people and go to him; wants to stay put and just keep looking at him, both at once. It feels as if Vanth is too bright somehow, despite that shadow; as if Din’s been squinting too long into the sun.

It’s like he’s not wearing the beskar; like he’s been punched in the chest.

He needs to not feel this. He needs to – not.

An encouraging coo rises from the assembled children as the kid gets over his shyness, scurrying forwards to clamber his way up the side of the crate and throw himself in amongst the toys, seemingly exclaiming about each one. Wrenching his attention back, Din focuses on this.

It’s something else he doesn’t want to miss.

“He likes ‘em then,” That’s the great-grandmother, pronouncing this with some satisfaction as the child proceeds to wade amongst the soft things near bigger than he is and babble over them in delight, the other children angling themselves in closer to tell him about their creations, detailing what the toys are made of and which of them drew on a face; who made up an outfit; who stitched up a cloth limb when the thread kept coming loose.

“He’s all right,” The great-grandmother pats Din’s arm as if he’s done anything to warrant such an action or indicate he requires such reassurance, her wrinkled fingers barely whispering over the beskar, “You’re doing all right by him.”

“There’s much more I should do,” Would do, if he could. Will do. This is a fact.

“There always is,” Thin fingers startle him by encircling his wrist, the great-grandmother gripping there for a moment with surprising strength and in a way that doesn’t come across as a precursor to threat. Instead it’s inexplicably grounding.

Something deep inside Din still has him stiffen nonetheless; still has him instinctively seek to reclaim his arm and shift away – he holds himself carefully steady under it in deference to the wisdom in her weather-beaten face; her advanced age.

Not many people ever think to touch him, other than the kid; the vast majority of contact unwanted and due to the necessity of violence. There aren’t many people Din would care to touch in return, and very little reason he can think of to instigate it. A few allies they’ve encountered during his time with the child; even fewer friends – a clasp of a shoulder; a handshake when appropriate.

He shook hands with Vanth. Held hands, that traitorous part of Din whispers.

No. They didn’t hold hands. Why would they have done?

“See, and we thought this one looked like you!” The oldest child is busy carefully extracting one of the stuffed toys out of the crate, a soft rounded one that’s vividly green, displaying it proudly to the kid. It doesn’t, but the little one bounces and gurgles all the same, accepting the thing solemnly with both hands before clasping it to his small body while the older child beams.

Turning an equally wide toothy grin up at Din, the kid wobbles a bit under the size of the thing as his little arms do their utmost to hold it up and show it off to him.

“I see it,” It takes Din a moment to realise he’s returning the smile within his helmet. Even with the modulator, some of it creeps into his voice.

His eyes closing in happiness, the child hugs his toy again and croons.

“You know, folk were mentioning wanting to do something for you too, if you did happen to come back,” The great-grandmother informs Din without prompting and without looking at him.

“You have,” Din admits, low voiced and unable to conceal how much he means it, relieved when the old woman simply nods.

He thanks them all after, children and adults both, once things have calmed down a bit and the other children readying themselves to resume their short trek to the building that houses the local school.

Feeling like he’s risking something when it shouldn’t feel that way at all, Din finally allows himself to glance back to where Vanth had been leaning against the wall, only to find the side of the building lit up by the suns as they climb higher and the other man gone.

\--

“You knew,” Din says when the child is settled with a few others not attending classes, the kid having baulked at entering the school. If they were to stop somewhere long enough; if they were to settle –

No. It’s pointless thinking of such things.

Still, if the kid wants to practice his belly flops onto a pile of his new toys, before passing them out merrily for the others to play with as well – well, he’s had little enough opportunity to do such a thing before and Din can’t begrudge him now.

Din doesn’t track Vanth down; doesn’t ask after the marshal’s whereabouts or look within the cantina where they first met, its door opened to the heat of the day as before and the promise of shelter within. He doesn’t think of the particular blue shade of spotchka and the drink they never shared, or the ways in which they _could_ share it; the way he could perhaps purchase a bottle and –

Such thoughts are a distraction at best; the day getting away with him as well as his mind. Din might not track Vanth down specifically but he’s aware of the man’s presence somewhere in the town all the same, and it almost feels as if there is a lodestone Din is drawn towards, something other than the child guiding the direction of his feet.

While this isn’t the case, can’t be the case, Din still finds Vanth all the same.

Finds him down on one knee in the heat growing ever more intense, shirtsleeves rolled up to bare his arms up to the elbows as he wrangles the frayed electronics within an external wall panel belonging to a partially renovated little building set that bit further out of town. His clothes desert-stained, face sun-browned and flushed in the light pouring down on him as he lets out a puff of breath, fine grey hairs wafting up from his forehead as a result, only to settle slowly back down.

This provides Din with something he can offer.

“Here,” He has to swallow before he can speak, “If you want.”

Vanth turns with mild surprise, eyebrows climbing up briefly as he glances at the canteen of water Din holds out towards him and then over at his own almost empty one where it stands a short distance away atop a battered toolbox, not far from Din.

“That would be a kindness, thanks,” He lifts his hand to accept, long fingers curling around the canteen as Din sets it in the other man’s palm. They don’t touch.

Din’s fingers shouldn’t flex slightly within the thick fabric of his gloves as if in chase of him.

He watches Vanth thumb open the cap, watches the other man’s throat work as he drinks, despite knowing he should not all the while. Thinks about his own mouth touching the same place on the lip of the canteen when he took the opportunity in privacy earlier; thinks about this with a feeling of almost helplessness. Almost a little cross with himself, a little frustrated – he’s not some youth with a crush.

Vanth is a distraction and Din knew how foolish he was to come here and yet he did it anyway; he knew they’d end up lingering this morning. He shouldn’t countenance the possibility that they’ll still be here again when the day’s done; doesn’t let himself consciously acknowledge it, although guilt gnaws in him all the same.

The lead provides a meagre reason for them to remain, perhaps for the next half an hour. The next few minutes. He should be asking about it now.

He should have asked last night.

If it proves time sensitive and lingering in Mos Pelgo like this means they miss their chance –

No. Nothing in what little information Din has implies such a narrow window. And it would be rude of him to offer water and then interrupt the other man as he drinks. It would be wrong of him to take the kid away from his enjoyment, from this small moment in which he can be just a child amongst other children. Can they –

Can they not have this, just for a bit?

There’s an ache to the inside of Din’s bones that feels like age-old exhaustion; a drag within his sternum at the likelihood that the answer is no.

“Thirstier work than expected, but this part is mostly done,” Vanth isn’t making any production of drinking; just takes a few mouthfuls, less than half of what’s there, and makes sure to recap and return the canteen in a way that speaks of a desert-dweller’s lifelong regard. Shutting the wall panel after a final couple of adjustments, then leaning back in the sand and the dirt, kicking long legs out in front of him as he gestures an invitation for Din to do the same, “You want to sit so we can talk more easily, friend?”

Partner. Friend. These appellations are – acceptable.

No, they’re more than acceptable. Welcome, in truth, although considering them too closely seems dangerously unwise, bringing with them as they do an eager tightening of that something in Din’s belly that’s far too compelling for him to deem permissible; something that, if he let it, could grow to be alarmingly hungry, swelling until it would be hard to control.

He can control it. He is; he will. Reminds himself that it simply might be a matter of convenience, although Vanth has never seemed to use such terms in any manner other than genuine.

Still, he’s not in any way forgotten that the other man doesn’t yet know his name. Somewhere between an oversight and an omission, once the time came in which he realised he wanted to share such information and his throat closed over, sealing shut on the words. A word. Just the one, really – he has no doubt the other man would work it out, in the right context.

He can’t condone how much a part of him aches to hear Vanth say it. How much a part of him aches.

Yet offering it up to the other man unasked for feels inescapably as if it would be an admission of kind; a weakness; a slippage. Allow Vanth in that much and then keep on allowing him, like slipping fingers under the buckles and catches of what should be impenetrable armour one by one and ever onwards; like inviting Vanth in and in and in. Inviting him to see and to know _Din_ , whoever that is, and not ‘ _Mando’_ , not the bounty hunter, not the person who will climb onto that speeder and leave this little town with no concern or qualm, and certainly no regret.

This is a person who does and yet doesn’t entirely exist; a persona to an extent. A holo figure made solid instead of the reality of troublesome bone and flesh; at times even a convenience, when the real figure underneath with all its hunger and wants is increasingly inconvenient, an obstacle to overcome.

Invite Vanth in too much and Din’s well aware he won’t want to let him go again. And yet he still crumples – a simple invitation and gesture from the other man, and his knees are already bending, his body making the decision on the behalf of his mind.

“All right,” It is not the first occasion in which he avoids acknowledging that he is grateful to the modulator for smoothing the unsteadiness and other such imperfections out of his voice.

Easing himself down carefully onto the sagging porch of the rundown building next to the one Vanth has been working on, Din focuses his concentration on ignoring the creak of it debating whether to tolerate the heaviness of beskar as well as his own weight.

“Don’t blame me if you end up on your ass,” Vanth’s grin is a little teasing, a little – Din can’t let himself think _fond_. Fondness is something for the kid, not him. “I haven’t got to that one yet.”

“I would question your skills if you had,” For all Din keeps his tone deadpan, he gets a mock-offended huff and a chuckle for it, the both almost embarrassingly gratifying.

“You want to tell me why you’re here? Don’t let that make it seem like you’re not welcome, because you sure are, for however long – you and the kid. I just know there has to be a reason for it,” Tugging his scarf off from round his neck, Vanth swipes over his brow before seemingly compulsively refolding it, only to put it back on again in a way that means it immediately loses its shape.

Watching this, Din represses the impulse to reach out to adjust it; feels the dryness of his mouth. Easy to deem it just one of the ways his body’s striving to inform him that it too requires hydrating.

He’ll drink more later, when he’s alone. For now, looking at the momentarily exposed length of Vanth’s throat feels far more important, watching as it’s once again concealed. Gaze tracing the whiskers on the other man’s cheeks; the shape of his jaw and chin; the sunlit grey of his hair. A touch of reddened skin threatening to peel later on the bridge of his nose.

“You knew about the gifts. For the kid,” Din returns to instead of answering yet. It’s hard to tell if Vanth heard earlier or was simply lost in his work; Din had stood there for a long moment, just looking at the other man’s hands and how he moved them, how the muscles in his bare forearms tensed and relaxed. Vanth has a scar there on the inside of one wrist, almost a twin to the one on his temple.

Din should not want to slide a glove off and touch them. He shouldn’t have wanted to curl his fingers over Vanth’s on passing him the canteen. He shouldn’t want to shift off this porch and sit closer now; he shouldn’t – oh, he shouldn’t so many things.

He shouldn’t feel so tired, so worn down. Like he’s at risk of grinding himself down into nearly nothing by telling himself this over and over.

And he definitely shouldn’t be entertaining such thoughts. Definitely shouldn’t be wondering _‘but what if?’_ Not while he has the quest to complete. Not until he has found the child’s people; the kid’s own kind. Not until he knows the child will be safe and able to live free from threat or harm.

Din is undeniably aware of the fact that he will probably die in the attempt to achieve this. That it is entirely likely impossible to achieve.

“It wasn’t my idea,” Vanth is saying, unaware of the turn of Din’s thoughts, “But yeah, I knew. Might even have helped some of the smallest ones out with the stitching.” The wrinkles deepen on his brow; his expression open, honest, “Should I have stopped them?”

“No,” Forcing himself to focus, Din allows himself to admit. Feeling as if it’s giving too much away somehow, accustomed as he is to protecting the kid by downplaying their connection and role in each other’s lives, “No. It was a kindness. The kid – he loves playing with others. And he doesn’t – didn’t have many toys.”

“Well,” The corners of Vanth’s eyes crinkle, “I can say on behalf of everyone here that we’re glad to have remedied that.”

It’s too much, that easy fondness. That Vanth has for the child; that he doesn’t hesitate to show or seek to conceal.

That fondness he might just have a little of for Din.

Why would he?

“I need to track down the Jawas,” This is what Din should have said immediately, “My contact in Mos Eisley said they’ve been elusive.” Even more evasive than usual. Making even fewer appearances in both the city and elsewhere, and even turning down the chance to bargain or trade, “That something has them spooked.”

“Not been much sign of them out this way for a good old while now, that’s for sure,” Vanth rubs thumb and forefinger at the nape of his neck, shifting position to stretch a little, easing a crick out of his back perhaps, eyes squinting as he thinks. His fingers dip under the scarf absently, tugging at the collar of his shirt, as unselfconscious and settled in himself and his body as if unobserved.

This brings more things Din shouldn’t think and yet thinks anyway – about crouching down in front of the other man and guiding that scarf back away so he can trace gloved fingers over the man’s clavicle; so he can tug the tails of Vanth’s shirt free from the other man’s belt and slide his palm up underneath.

The suns are pouring down on him, baking him, filling him up with their unrelenting heat. He should have activated what relief the wiring within his cuirass can give him. He’s just sitting here; just watching. He isn’t usually this affected.

“You want me to find them for you?” Vanth turns his squint onto Din. An amount of unexpected concern blooming there only confirmed as his tone changes slightly, following this up a little slowly with, “Look, you might not want me to say this, but I got to ask – you all right in there, partner?”

_In there_ – in the sunlight, in the armour, in the presence of this man and the sudden knowledge of just what to say to make him smile.

“Yes,” Din agrees, because it’s an agreeable word when it comes to this man and that form of address – partner – and Vanth does smile, just like that.

“Okay, sure you are – and you’re having some water,” Vanth also shakes his head as if Din answered entirely differently, “Come on, friend; didn’t sit right me drinking yours just then while you had nothing, but now? I’m going to have to insist. Need to get you out of the suns by the look of you, too.”

Pushing himself up to his feet in one easy movement, ignoring the sand scattering down to land at his boots, he holds out his hand.

“I’m fine,” Narrowing his eyes behind his visor, Din starts to lick his dry lips only to find his mouth is just as parched; registers for the first time just how shortly his breath is coming, rattling just a little in his chest. He gets a look he hasn’t received before from the other man, that hand still outstretched.

“Humour me, will you?” Seriousness settling into his expression, Vanth hauls Din up when he accepts that hand, the taller man bracing his heels in the sand, Din not quite grunting as he shoves himself up.

Doing so is unexpectedly dizzying. He takes an unintentional half-step forwards, almost a stumble, head dipping towards Vanth’s shoulder as the ground seems, just for a second, to slip away.

“All right there, partner, just – step right inside there for me, easy now,” Vanth wraps a hand around his arm above the elbow, steers Din towards the building he’s been repairing, although he’s notably not returned to work during their conversation, “I can go take a walk or stand guard; whatever’s best.” Something, some shadow, passing over his face, “Seen folk not dressed in anything like as much as you get suns-addled real quick this time of day; you get some water in you and whatever you can of that off, while I give myself a talking to for not catching on sooner.”

“I’m _fine_ ,” The relief of being inside still slams into Din all the same once he’s over the threshold into the dwelling, the air still hot but not _as_ hot, all the difference made by the shade, the shutters over the narrow windows all closed. His canteen follows him in, Vanth’s hand pressing it into his, and then Din’s tugging his gloves off before he knows it, tipping up his helmet as soon as the door’s shut, barely taking in what detail there is to make out of the deserted little room he’s now in except for the fact that it’s empty.

The water feels like it just evaporates in his mouth; it doesn’t even taste. The whole thing is _mortifying_.

“Don’t suppose you want to tell me just how long you’d been carrying on for without stopping, before last night?” There’s the sound of footsteps a short distance away outside and Vanth raising his voice to be heard, “Though I don’t reckon you slept much then either, come to that.”

There’s no criticism in his tone, only a touch of wryness perhaps; the awareness that he went without sleeping himself. A gentleness along with it that Din doesn’t let himself bite the inside of his cheek at hearing.

_I’m fine._ Except he isn’t really, is he.

Canteen empty, Din opens his mouth to repeat the earlier protestation, closes it again without answering. Leans against the wall next to the door, blinking in what little light there is creeping in around the edges of the shuttered windows; telling himself to get a hold of himself, to walk out of here, walk away. Go check on the child. Eases his cuirass open partially instead, tugging at his cowl, thumb brushing at the fastening to the layers that take him down to his flight suit. Very carefully not thinking about undressing any further; about the other man out there, just a few feet away.

“It’s – been a while,” The admission is quite possibly too low for Vanth to identify.

“Lots of fighting before then too, right,” This isn’t a question, just as there’s no need for Din to answer. Vanth’s footsteps move away further then for a couple of minutes and there’s the sound of another voice; a short exchange. When his footsteps return, they’re unaccompanied, and he knocks just once at the door, “Got you more water.”

So here Din has a choice. To put his glove back on or not. His hand looks like a stranger’s; he doesn’t recognise it. Dust and dirt-stained, grains of sand clinging to his skin already, a network of old scars and veins on the back. He finds his fingers seeking to curl in toward his palm, not to make a fist, but imagining a touch.

“I’ll leave it out here for you,” Vanth takes the lack of reply as a reply in itself, just as the previous one was, but Din’s already opening the door before he knows it, before he can process it, just a few inches, just enough.

Trying not to feel like he’s hiding – helmet back down, true, but still hiding and hidden all the same.

Also revealed, in a small way. Is it small? No one’s seen his skin in –

No one’s seen his skin. Not since – Not since. His hand feels exposed in the short silence that follows, before Vanth passes his own canteen over. It probably isn’t more than a few seconds, even that, but Din’s heart beats hard all the same.

“You doing better in there?” Vanth asks, once Din’s closed his fingers around the canteen in the way they wanted to around the other man’s hand, and they don’t touch, they don’t touch once again. But it’s Vanth’s canteen, he’s drunk from it, his mouth has touched the lip of it just as it did when he drank from Din’s, and Din really shouldn’t be just looking at the canteen for a moment, pad of his index finger going to rest against the place where he’s going to drink from once he’s uncapped it and –

And nothing. Nothing at all.

“Yeah,” Din says, husky, and it’s true this time, “Thanks for the water.” He drinks, and with it comes further words. “I’m sorry about earlier.” Sorry that he blundered; sorry that he said something that clearly struck a painful chord within the other man. That he wounded someone he had no intention of wounding.

“Earlier –?” He imagines Vanth standing there still in that sunlight, hand scrubbing through his hair perhaps or his beard, brow wrinkled as he casts his mind back, “Oh.” A small word that could mean anything; Din holds himself still. Waiting. “Yeah, no worries about that.” A pause; the scrape of something on sand that could be a booted foot, “Didn’t mean to react poorly myself.”

“You didn’t,” Din says this almost too quickly and promptly curses himself; rubs his thumb over the lip of the canteen. His voice dropping lower, quieter, as he repeats it, “You didn’t.”

“Meant to say, kid’s playing chase with Nerin and Morra over yonder, couple of twins only about half a head taller than him,” A shuffle and another series of scrapes, and then a faint thud marks the distinct likelihood that Vanth’s just sat down outside. Still propped up against the wall, Din eyes the shadow just visible in the narrow space between the bottom of the door and the ground, ribs tightening a little at just how close they are. There’s that fondness back in Vanth’s voice and a laugh alongside it, “Asked their auntie to see he got a drink when the twins did and got myself a little scolded for the presumption, because she’d just gone and already given them all one.”

“You checked on him?” Din’s an idiot; Vanth just said as much.

“Just a glance,” The other man seems unperturbed, “Didn’t want to distract any of them from the game. He okay out for much longer in this heat?”

“He should be. Unlike some, apparently,” Din picks at a peeling edge on the canteen, realises it’s not his own and makes himself stop. Still embarrassed, although he’s been trying not to acknowledge it – doing so just makes it rush back to the fore.

_Kriff._

“Hey, I’ll have you know that’s a good friend of mine you’re doing down,” There’s humour in Vanth’s response and a whole lot of warmth that’s got nothing to do with the suns; Din burns in quite a different way to hear it and at what is said.

He also pushes his helmet off properly, but there’s no one to know here in the near dark, just as there’s no one to be aware of his sweat-damp face or hair plastered in places to his head.

“Mm,” He can’t speak with it off, not yet anyway, not like this, but a grunt thankfully seems sufficient – or, at least, Vanth draws what he wants from it. Which is apparently a request to keep on talking, something Din’s intently grateful for, settling himself against the wall that much more, sinking into the unhurried drawl of the other man’s voice.

“Want me to tell you about back when I was trying to figure out fine-tuning how to use that armour I borrowed?” No derision or resentment in this whatsoever, just reminiscence and what sounds much like that crooked grin of his, “Wasn’t much fine-tuning at first. Don’t know whether it’ll annoy or amuse you to hear how much I screwed up and how many times, before I got the hang of it. Folks here will no doubt enjoy telling you how I took all sorts of tumbles trying out that jetpack – however much I tried to secure myself a place where I could make a fool of myself on my own, someone or other would always appear, always supposedly to check on me or help dig me out of the sand. And I did need them to haul me out of some dune or other more than half the time, even if they did then go and tell everyone else.” Long-suffering affection laces his tone alongside amusement and self-directed chagrin.

“It is – very broken,” Din had only needed a glance at the other armour back when they’d first met to establish this. He tries to keep his voice light, even; as calm as if his face isn’t uncovered. As if his free hand doesn’t keep on drifting up towards his mouth, half shielding, half –

He’s not thinking about that other half.

“You’re telling me,” Vanth sets something down next to him – some item plucked from his toolbox perhaps, as there’s then the sound of him fiddling with something – as he chuckles, “Anyway, the most infamous of those ‘practice’ sessions sure has to be when I managed to go crash land on some would-be bandits and got myself gut shot.”

“Gut shot?” Din reacts to this without intending, straightening, his fingers twitching, something inside his own belly tightening with unbidden protectiveness although the time when it happened has clearly long past. Speaking before he can hold the words back, “You needed more protection.”

Around that waist, that flat stretch of belly – so exposed and unprotected, practically a target in that red shirt. On the other places on Vanth that had been left ripe for the picking, although all of him is now, isn’t it, and Din –

Din shouldn’t be thinking about those places. Shouldn’t be tipping his head back until it hits the wall and closing his eyes, thinking in helpless detail about them, free hand straying out towards the door as if it’s standing in for the other man.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating increased for smut :)

“Hey now,” There’s a laugh running alongside a rich thrum of what’s clearly mock-offense in Vanth’s drawl, “I’ll have you know I still took those bandits down – even if it might not have been in a way you probably would have called dignified – and besides, it all healed up just fine.”

“Just fine,” Gazing at a shadowed corner of the little room he’s in without seeing it, Din unintentionally echoes; aware his response may well be read as scepticism, although it isn’t intended as such.

Sharply conscious of another meaning to those words, when applied to the topic under discussion – that flat expanse of abdomen, that stretch of belly. The man as a whole. Yes.

_Just fine._

Tipping his head back until it thuds lightly against the wall as if in the attempt to knock some sense into himself, Din can’t help but say this either, “You haven’t sought to replace the armour.”

Feeling the weight of his helmet in his hands as he tastes the truth he’s certain of in that observation; the weight of all the metal he carries – on his arms and shoulders, his torso. His legs. Vanth had been exposed there, also. Those belts of his so low-slung.

It wouldn’t take much to loosen the buckles, were Vanth agreeable, and just slide what’s there down. It wouldn’t take much at all.

Din should certainly not be considering this. Certainly shouldn’t be remembering the way those pants sit so low on those hips, and how he could tuck the tips of his fingers under the waistline and draw them down so easily as well.

_Kriff._

He keeps this silent. Hidden; eyes closed, hand up shielding. The only thing that’s in any way tolerable about all of his foolishness is that Vanth doesn’t know.

Because if he _did_ know –

Now that. _That_ is something Din definitely shouldn’t be thinking on – again and again and again and again – all those _what ifs_ back to rattle at him, building up once more within his body, digging back up the ache that’s not only in his bones, but is more specific – a pressure that gathers in the pit of his belly, threatening to spread lower down.

It’s not at all tolerable, in truth – none of it is. But he’ll tolerate it anyway.

“Can’t say that I have,” There’s a small noise from the other side of the door, like Vanth perhaps places down one tool and picks up another, so near to Din and yet also so far, “You know nothing ain’t going to come close.”

There’s nothing Din can say to that, nothing that isn’t a ‘but’, a sentence start that could be so easily misconstrued.

“You know, I don’t know whether it’d make things better or worse to say I wouldn’t have gone for that borrowed set in the first place in truth, if there’d been any other option to save this here town,” Vanth’s gone a little rueful like perhaps he’s anticipating a negative response. He’s still talking, though.

Din is grateful enough for this it takes him a moment to even parse the words.

“You – wouldn’t?” Unidentifiable emotion turns over within the soft press of his abdomen and under his ribs, or at least he skirts away from identifying it. Very slowly, so not to be betrayed by the sound of his own armour as he moves, Din eases himself down until he’s sitting leaning against that door, until – aside from the few inches of it between them – he and Vanth are essentially sitting back to back.

Din feels so immensely aware of those few inches it’s almost absurd.

Tells himself it’s absurd, anyway.

“Ah, don’t get me wrong,” There’s enough warmth in Vanth’s reply it almost seems to seep right through that door and in between the gaps in Din’s armour; into the curve of his back. Something perhaps a little fierce stirring in other man too, almost proud, “You got to know I _loved_ that armour. Loved what it let me do; loved that it let all of us here get our freedom back.”

_And I took it away from you,_ Din doesn’t say. He can’t regret it, not exactly – shouldn’t even be allowing himself the possibility of regretting it. It was the right thing to do for his people and by the Creed. It was necessary.

But.

_Gut shot,_ Din thinks. If that had happened while Vanth was _wearing_ the armour, in what other ways would the man have been injured without it?

In what other ways _has_ he been injured without it?

“But Mos Pelgo is doing much better these days,” This isn’t an answer. How can it be if Din doesn’t – can’t – ask? Huffing for a second, Vanth presses on something – metal against metal; Din hears it click shut, “Thanks to our new Tusken friends and yourself.” Pausing then as if to provide an opportunity to respond Din similarly fails to take.

Not verbally, anyway. His hand moves before his mind catches up with him, knuckles rapping just lightly against that door, much as Vanth did earlier when he returned with his canteen filled with water. A quiet single sound; an acknowledgement that he’s listening.

A ‘go on’.

“So yeah,” Vanth does. Din can almost see the other man’s smile; pictures him tugging off that scarf again to wipe back over his forehead. Maybe the back of his neck. Vanth’s still sitting out there in all that sunlight, after all. He continues, picking back up on his story; his explanation, rather, “A whole camtono of silicax crystals? For armour only I wore? Sure, I may be marshal of this here place, but that doesn’t make me any more important than any other folk living in it. I mean, if it hadn’t been for the Red Key bastards and that dragon and me being most of the way to dead back at the time, I’d have seen if those Jawas would have traded those crystals for materials towards building us all here better roofs, perhaps. Ones not so likely to blow off in the next sandstorm; we had three go last time around, along with a family who otherwise would still be here now. Or I’d have traded the crystals for whatever would raise enough credits to buy the parts for a better moisture vaporator for the school; bunch of us have repaired that darn thing so many times now and yet it still keeps on making out it’s going to quit on us, and no one wants their little ones to go thirsty, when us adults are ever more tightly rationing what we get out of the couple of other vaporators that are supposedly working as it is. We all see the kids go first regardless, but –” He makes a noise that doesn’t quite succeed in passing as a laugh; Din imagines him running a hand through his grey hair. Just a little sheepish, perhaps, “Anyhow, I don’t mean to talk your ear off; you get the gist.”

“I do,” This makes it out of Din’s mouth too quietly at first; he has to swallow and say it again, “I do.”

He slips his helmet on over his head. Hair still a little damp at the roots, but his heartrate steadier; he feels like he can stand back up without his body punishing him for it any more than it usually does after he’s pushed it too far beyond his limits, something he's usually more successful at fighting through.

Thinking of which –

That question he’s been keeping tucked behind his teeth chooses now to slip its way out, or at least part of it does, “Have you fought. Since.”

“Since returning what wasn’t mine?” By the sound of it, Vanth might be stretching, maybe readying himself to stand up likewise, “Sure have. Didn’t do too badly at it either, believe it or not, and made my point besides.” That laughter returns to his voice, more obvious now and paired with an equally audible wince. Still no recrimination or resentment even so, “Got shot again for my troubles too, a couple of times – is that what you’re wondering? Managed to break a few bones to boot, though thankfully not all at once, and cracked my head open a little again a month or so back.”

“ _What_ ,” Pausing in the act of putting his gloves back on, Din finds himself half-turning around to narrow his eyes at the door, as if doing so will allow him to see right through it to the other man. Cursing himself for his reaction even as he does – it’s too much; even through the modulator he sounds too invested.

Damn it, but part of him wants to demand to know exactly where those injuries were, what caused them, how they healed. Whether they still cause Vanth any difficulty now.

Who caused them, so Din can go hunt them down. Shove some sort of armour on the man right before – durasteel is next to useless in comparison to beskar, true, but it’s better than nothing. Better than _gut shot_ or a cracked head.

He needs to –

He needs to not be reacting like this.

Still, Din’s hand is on the panel to open the door before he can stop the impulse, body already reacting during the fraction of time it takes for his mind to catch up. The hefty slap of the day’s full sunshine is blinding as a result, slamming into him like the fool he’s just made out of himself, visor whiting out entirely before the HUD works to compensate.

“ _Ugh_ ,” He manages to keep this soundless, at least.

“Oh – hey partner,” Vanth is _there_ , a darker shape crystallising out of all that light. The other man blinking as he in turn finds himself faced with the shadows all fleeing into the secret little nooks and crannies of the rundown building, backlit by the entirety of that golden light while Din is a movement of metal born out of the receding dark.

He’s never felt the few inches difference in height between them so sharply. Never felt so close to just – oh, closing his fingers in the material of Vanth’s shirt, his scarf. Leading him on in here; tugging the other man right up against him. Shutting the door behind them and palming it locked. Almost –

Almost would do. Could do. His heart back to beating so hard it’s like it’s daring him.

But Vanth has given no indication of wanting it, or at least not that Din has seen.

“Come in here,” The need to reach out has already built to an unstoppable level within him even so. Din finds himself catching the man by the elbow, gloved fingers wrapping around Vanth’s arm for just long enough to encourage him into stepping over the threshold. Hotly aware of the way the other man’s eyebrows go up in unspoken question even as he proves good enough to oblige. Din presses the canteen into Vanth’s unoccupied hand afterwards, as if that provides him with any excuse, “Drink.”

They’re close. Very close. About the same space as when that damned door had been between them, in truth – but it isn’t any longer now, and that makes even more difference than he’d thought it would.

He’s back to being dizzyingly breathless all over again.

“You didn’t have to leave me any,” Din gets a sideways look for his behaviour, before Vanth drops his gaze to frown unseeingly at the canteen, “You drank enough, right?” His thumb traces for a second over the peeling edge Din had been unintentionally picking at earlier, “I take it you’re doing better now.”

“Yeah,” The instinct is there at once to say that he’s fine, “I did. I am.” Din changes it to this, owing it to Vanth to be honest, grateful when it seems to go some way towards pacifying the man.

“All right then,” He gets that look slipping back towards him as Vanth uncaps the canteen and takes a few mouthfuls, gaze considering.

Even if Din turns off the HUD, it’s difficult to reliably tell through the visor precisely what colour those eyes are.

It’s not something he cares to think about often, but things look subtly yet undeniably – different, without the helmet on. The shades and tones of the reality he often can’t avoid rubbing up against typically removed by those few degrees by the barrier provided by the visor. Wearing the helmet is almost always more reassuring or even comforting than it is a frustration; the snatched glances he sometimes can’t avoid taking of the world through only his own fallible eyes too vivid, feeling almost hyperreal.

So Din watches now and doesn’t wonder what it would be like to look upon Vanth without that layer – those layers – between them, or he does, he _does_ , but to see would also involve him being seen, and so he can’t allow himself to think on it.

Refuses to think on it, even as it’s all a deep down part of him _can_ think about as he watches Vanth, thirsty all over again himself in a way that’s far closer in fact to hunger than any genuine need to drink.

“So I’m reckoning this is where I admit I’m pretty much sure you’re pissed off with me,” Vanth says when he’s lowered the canteen, wiping his mouth dry on the back of his hand. A leftover stray bead of water caught in his beard just above the curve of his chin that Din aches to wipe away.

To take off his glove first – to feel himself to do that.

To _feel_. Skin against skin; against the whisper of Vanth’s beard. Would it be rough? Would it feel similar to Din’s own facial hair?

Now it not the time for such wonderings. He tips his head slightly to one side, a _why_ and a request to continue combined. Clarifies a little lowly on a twinge of chagrin, “I’m not.”

Giving off such an impression had certainly not been his intention, although –

“I’m not angry with you,” Damn it. All right, he can see why Vanth has that impression, “Your lack of armour – I understand. I don’t –” A breath in, in the hope it will help steady him, “I don’t disapprove.”

“But you don’t _approve_ either, do you,” He gets a quirk of Vanth’s head to a greater degree than his own. A considering look in the other man’s eyes as if Vanth sees straight through that helmet to the partially crumpled expression Din is only peripherally aware of making until right then.

One drawback of always keeping his face hidden – he rarely has any idea what he’s actually doing with it. Little means of controlling it, either.

“It’s not for me to approve or otherwise,” Din feels a little hotness in his belly, tightness in his chest. Not anger, though; he truly isn’t pissed off. It’s just that the thought of – “But what would Mos Pelgo do if you’re killed?”

What would _he_ do?

Now that _would_ be selfish; Din doesn’t even come close to saying it aloud. This isn’t supposed to be about him at all.

“Appoint another marshal,” Is the answer he gets and a slight shrug to accompany it, Vanth rolling that canteen of his between the palms of his hands. He’s got something stuck in a pocket, stretching the fabric; the device he was working on earlier, perhaps. A couple of tools stuck into his belt and a stray lock of grey hair falling down over his forehead. A quizzical light to his gaze as he leans his shoulder against the wall Din was propping up earlier and a bit of a crooked smile for him too, “I told you already, partner, didn’t I – more or less. Could have been ate by that dragon any time back when it was still around, just like anyone else. They’re our friends now and I’m grateful for it, but there was a time or ten in the past when one Tusken or other nearly took off my head – in that old helmet or out of it – and I mean that literally. I ain’t nobody special. Sure, I could scrape together the funds to get me some durasteel helmet in Mos Eisley or something, but I don’t reckon it would do much of anything except slow me down from working out if anyone’s sneaking up on me from out of my line of sight or make me likely to trip over my own boots. I’d frankly rather put any credits I come up with into better ways to look after my town.”

“Mm,” Din can’t look at him. An impulse rising within him to leave – except he can’t. Vanth is there, _right there_ , and Din’s trapped himself in this place with this man and this conversation he doesn’t know how to get out of, and can’t help but fear coming over as condescending, when he means anything but.

The door’s open, but he’d have to brush right past Vanth to get out of it. Fleeing from his own feelings more than anything else.

“You sell yourself short,” The words feel scraped out of his throat. Says them without meaning to, grateful for the modulator, feeling all over again like he’s giving away far too much. Winces at how gruff he sounds.

“Hey,” That’s one of Vanth’s hands snapping out, letting go of the canteen to close over Din’s wrist –

No, to extend as if to do so, as if to catch hold of him, only to fail to make contact. Respecting what small space there is between them.

Respecting Din.

“Hey now,” Those wrinkles on Vanth’s brow have deepened; he’s pushing away from the wall, turning further towards Din. Eyes scanning the helmet like there’s an expression there to see, “Hey. I –” A soft sound of not quite amusement and he half-shakes his head. Voice dropping almost as if he’s speaking to himself for a second, although he’s not, “Times like this, you know, I’d sure love to know what to call you.” His volume rises back up as he lifts a hand, “It’s okay, friend, I’m not asking. Got to be all kinds of mighty good reasons why you might not –”

Din wants to step in; let those fingers curled around the air instead of his wrist actually make contact. Wants to tell him.

He can – do that much. He _wants_ to do it. Has _been_ wanting to.

“Din.”

“Din?” Hearing his name in Vanth’s voice; seeing his lips shaping it is –

“Y-yeah,” Kriff, his voice cracks.

_Fuck_.

“Oh,” Just that for half a second, there’s just that small quiet sound hanging between them, but then Vanth’s grin tugs its way right across his face. Even broader than Din’s seen it before, all those lines around the other man’s mouth and eyes crinkling, Vanth somehow seeming to both relax and draw himself upright both at once. “All right then, Din. So I’m reckoning that makes me ‘Cobb’.”

Oh shit.

He should have seen this coming. There’s a clearly expectant look on Vanth’s – Cobb’s – face and Din’s going to have to say it, isn’t he.

He already knows that, even with the modulator, he’s not going to be up to concealing all that he’s feeling. Just recalling the fact he wound fingers and thumb briefly around the other man’s elbow to get him in here has his hand tingling with an echo of the touch and the temptation to do it again. Cobb is so _close_ , propped against the wall as he is, right where Din was standing earlier, and Din would only have to step in front of him and then take another step _in_ , and he could slip his knee between the other man’s legs; could press his body against the other man’s.

“Din?” Wrinkles deepen slightly on Cobb’s brow, but then he shakes his head on half a smile. A touch rueful, perhaps, “It’s all right, partner. Don’t feel you have to.”

He steps away while Din doesn’t know how to stop him, taking that something he’d been working on out of his pocket while trekking over to the centre of the dim room before shooting a look back at Din.

“You mind?”

Oh, it’s a – Cobb holds the thing up above him, squinting at the light fixture, and what he’s holding abruptly makes sense.

“No,” Din supplies, and so Cobb stretches up that bit further, the fixture just high enough for his heels to leave the floor, the length of him unfurling until the hem of his shirt untucks itself from his pants, a growing stretch of skin revealing itself inch by slow inch that Din doesn’t let himself bite his lip at seeing, although his own belly tightens even so.

A scar there, curving down over one hip only to disappear beneath Cobb’s belt, and Din wants to smooth his fingertips over it, to feel the raised line and the smooth skin either side, to run his thumb through the glimpse of curling hair just visible above the fastening to those pants, and –

Breath ragged, echoing abysmally loud within the helmet, he has to look away fast.

“There,” Cobb’s concentration remains thankfully on his task, a faint grin breaking out on his face as he snaps the covering overhead back into place and crosses in three swift steps to tap at a wall panel, the warm glow of the light flickering on, spilling over him much like that earlier sunlight. Stretches in satisfaction, rubbing at a shoulder, back arched in an unconscious display that only emphasises the lines and angles that make up the rest of him, the sharp edges of his hips.

Din wants to cross over the room to him, wants to put his arms around his waist, wants to bend his head to rest his helmet against his collarbone, wants to kiss him more than anything and –

“I need,” Damn it. Such things _aren’t meant for him_. A scrape of shame drags at him like sandpaper on a raw spot at the thought of using the child as an excuse, even if it’s true all the same, “I need to check on the kid.”

While Din keeps rigid control over his pace on the way out, it still feels like he flees.

\-- 

The child is playing in the sand around halfway down the main street, intent on inscribing a long wobbling line with the end of a stick while the twins do similarly nearby, tracing whirls and circles and what look like the beginnings of unfamiliar runes with their own. The duo are deep in discussion in a language Din only vaguely understands the broad notions of, identical smooth bright bronze heads bent close together and what look like small, potentially vestigial wings visible through holes sewn into the backs of their clothing, a race he doesn’t recognise.

He can’t help but recall Cobb’s mention of orphans and the fact that the other man had used to have children himself – three, in that crucial past tense. That Cobb had used to be a father, but –

But.

Din can only inhale shallowly around the weight of all the implications that come with that word, and the memory of the way Cobb had seemed to go a little brittle, expression going careful and tight in a way that seemed to speak so much of sorrow or grief, before he’d quietly escaped.

If Din were to lose the child –

No.

He can’t. He can’t even begin to think about such a thing, for all it feels like something his mind so often circles around like it’s skirting the edge of an abyss. Not with the little one in front of him here and now – it feels like a bad omen, for all Din isn’t one to usually put any credence to such a thing.

Sending a cautious look around goes a small way towards shaking this off, ensuring the safety of their surroundings. He glances next at the woman sat watching over the trio – the referenced aunt, perhaps. She nods like she recognises him – or at least recognises the armour – and he thinks vaguely that she might have been present, perhaps at the back of the small crowd, when the local kids earlier gave the child the toys they had made.

Far better to concentrate on such things – the child’s happiness; the fact he’s made new friends and had a decent stretch of time to play with them, here in the sand.

There’s a bundle of said toys Din scoops up into an arm after brushing off what he can of the sand, making a note of which seem to be particularly liked, in so far as they show greater signs of having been chewed.

“Abaa?” Abandoning his drawing, the kid drops his stick, rising only to totter unevenly over to Din and all but crash into his ankle, the sure sign of someone in need of an afternoon nap.

“Hey buddy,” Already in the act of crouching down to great him, Din manages to keep the toys from spilling out of his arm as the little one immediately requests to be picked up and tucked in amongst the soft things, a tiny hand gesturing behind him as if to indicate his artwork. Din steps over as such to admire it properly, “Yeah, I see it.”

“Mm,” A tiny hand patting his armour as if in appreciation of this, the kid closes his eyes, leaning his cheek against the cuirass.

“He ate a good lunch,” The woman tells Din when he turns to her, the solemnity of her long face softened by the smile in her dark eyes for the child, “Seemed real hungry when I got something for Morra and Nerin, and I knew you were busy with the marshal, so I went ahead and gave him some. I hope you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind,” Din curves his hand over the child’s head, the kid murmuring quietly as he nuzzles his face against one of the toys, fingers closing around Din’s thumb, “I appreciate it.”

“He had fun playing with the twins, just as they have with him,” Brushing her hands off on her pants, the woman pockets the tool she’d been cleaning along with the accompanying polishing rag, “But I think he started missing you a bit once he started getting sleepy. I was thinking of settling him down with the twins if you didn’t appear soon.”

“Thank you. I’ll see to him now,” Running his thumb very lightly over the wrinkles in the tiny brow, Din nods to show his gratitude, glancing down at the now slumbering kid again before heading off to do as said.

It doesn’t seem right to return to Cobb’s place without its owner present, despite the likelihood the man would think nothing of it. But while Din had been intensely aware of Cobb emerging from the small building during his conversation with the twins’ caretaker, the other man’s been flagged down by a couple of townsfolk to arbitrate over the onset of what looks likely to be a lengthy debate regarding a number of toppled crates seemingly spilled off a lumbering transport belching out smoke, a small group of onlookers gathered around to watch the proceedings in place as yet of helping out.

Busy paying attention to his people, Cobb’s got one hand on his hip, the other raking through his hair, and no idea whatsoever of just how good he looks to Din, who inhales shallowly and silently within his helmet, and carries on before he’s seen.

The afternoon sunshine has come to feel hotter and even more of a punishment than the morning’s by the time he makes it back the Cobb’s little house. He lets himself in, noting the unlocked door and the implication it brings, and look about cautiously for a long moment, free hand near his blaster, in case anyone or thing has taken advantage of the opportunity to enter unseen.

There’s nothing, only the bucket that had held the milk he’d washed out and turned on its side to dry on the counter, and motes dancing in a shaft of sunlight spilling onto the floor, dancing over the momentary beacon Din’s armour becomes as he steps through. He wakes the child just enough to get the little one to drink a few mouthfuls of water, once he’s filled a glass a very careful quarter full in the sink.

The little one’s back asleep by the time Din’s wiping the tiny mouth dry with the corner of a cloth, the toys deposited in a temporary pile on the corner of the couch. There’s a sip of water left, so he raises his helmet just enough to drink it, not allowing himself to think of earlier, of closing his mouth over the lip of Cobb’s canteen. Of intending not to allow himself to think of it, anyway.

Of intending not to let himself think of Cobb tucking two fingers in under Din’s helmet. Of Cobb curling them into Din’s mouth to sit on his tongue, of curving his tongue under them, of closing his lips around them so he can suck. Of intending not to think of the natural progression to that thought, of his mouth on Cobb in other places, of sucking –

“ _Kriff_.”

His body is stirring, striving to react to such thoughts however inappropriate, and he _can’t_. And he won’t – definitely not while he’s holding the kid.

It feels like there’s a slight tremble lodged within him as Din sets the child down gently in the spare room, opting for the bed this time rather than the basket and curving the sheets around him to make a nest. Transferring the toys to a side table so they’re visible when the little one wakes; perching next to him for a while to watch him slip deeper into dreams. A slight tremble that has Din pulling the door to the room partially closed after and then looking around the main area with a sort of restless churning inside his chest and stomach, a sort of gnawing guilt for the relentless itch in his shoulders and all down the length of his spine.

He finds himself eyeing the skull of the creature, set as promised on the shelf by the couch. Remembering what Cobb had said he’d do – and wouldn’t do – if he saw it outside the door; inescapably aware of how disgusting he feels inside his armour, underlayers at once damp and stiff from sweat beneath his flightsuit, sand crusted into all the seams it could reach. As on edge as if he hadn’t sat on that crumbling porch, but had just rolled in the stuff in the street.

A part of Din is well aware that this, too, is an excuse – he could endure being in the belly of the krayt dragon and the coating his armour had received from its insides; he should be able to endure this. But still he finds himself pacing over to collect the skull, picking it up with a feeling of unreality as if he’s two steps outside himself and just watching himself act.

He’s only going to take the opportunity for a quick shower – he tells himself this firmly. Just to get the worst of it off; just to stop feeling like he needs to crawl out of his skin.

It would be entirely inappropriate to shut himself in the refresher and – well. Not because of the Creed, it’s not forbidden precisely – although it had definitely been frowned upon as an unnecessary distraction back when he had been in training as a teen, seen as something to either repress or resolve as quickly and prosaically as possible, economically enough to almost feel like punishment – but because this is Cobb’s house, his _home_ , and Din and the child are the other man’s guests.

And he respects him.

Still, it feels disrespectful in a different sense to remain within Cobb’s home in as much of a mess as he is. This isn’t a lie, even if it feels in some sense like it is. Din sets the skull outside, shuts the door behind him on the way back in, glances in at the kid, steps into the refresher and refuses to wince at the lack of a lock. Removes his armour piece by piece and places it carefully to one side, a task so embedded in muscle memory that he barely notices it. Stares at the wall rather than the mirror. Doesn’t let himself consider the straight razor on the only shelf, thankfully up out of eyesight of the kid, and carefully has no opinion on the accompanying shaving products, all of which look much as if they’re locally produced. There’s some sort of what’s probably hair product as well, and Din’s taken his helmet off and is breathing in unfiltered air for once now and the smell of the substance might be –

He had wondered what Cobb’s hair would smell like before; still wonders it. Has imagined grazing his nose in amongst the soft-looking strands; imagined brushing his thumb through the other man’s beard. Running his fingers along the line of Cobb’s jaw, following them with his mouth. Leaning in and learning the taste of him.

_You asked me if I wanted you to find the Jawas._

This is what Din should have realised back when it felt like he was baking inside his armour; this is what he should be considering instead. The lost line of conversation he failed to pursue at the time, the only avenue he should have been interested in. He’s essentially turned down a possible lead or, to be fair to Cobb who Din can’t doubt would repeat the offer, unintentionally delayed learning further about it. For him to have been so caught up in himself and _not thinking of the kid_ , of setting aside his highest priority, of the quest it’s so critical he complete –

“Fuck.”

A sharp hot edge of self-directed anger slicing at his insides, Din sheds his dirty flightsuit and even less pleasant underlayers and steps into the shower, turning the sonic on high in punishment, just for a couple of minutes, just for long enough to try to shake himself out of his brain.

It doesn’t work. Even inhaling shallowly as he does, an unfamiliar scent floods his senses, one he doesn’t recognise and yet – he _does_ recognise it, at least partially, as if he’s smelled it from a distance, as if he’s previously breathed in an echo of it.

“Ah –” He finds himself almost gasping, hand going out to brace against the wall without thinking, and – Cobb stands right here when he’s showering; when he’s also naked. Din’s half-hard cock twitches so hard at this thought it _hurts_ , a noise that threatens to be caught between a sob and a moan tearing at his throat and his chest in the attempt to make it up and out from behind his gritted teeth.

If he doesn’t do something about this, he’s going to be walking out of the refresher with an erection and he has no guarantee Cobb’s not going to finish dealing with that debate and wonder what’s happened to Din and the kid.

Fuck, Din can’t think of the child right now. Really. And as off-putting as the thought of the kid waking while Din’s in such a state usually is, he _knows_ the little one, knows that he’s down for the count for a good hour or so.

But Cobb will think of him. Is highly likely to, anyway. From Din’s knowledge of the other man’s character, Cobb’s highly likely to come back here at some point to check up on them. There’s the possibility he won’t notice the skull – of course he would notice. Of course he’d respect it and follow the code he himself had seemingly created, but –

But what if for some reason someone has just – removed it. Never mind that Cobb had said people would recognise the signal for what it meant. Someone has unintentionally removed the skull and Cobb gets back only after it’s gone, walking down the steps into his home while Din’s still in the refresher. Only that barrier of the door between them again, but no lock to it and what if Cobb weren’t to realise and, tired from being out in the sun himself and sweaty from the work he’s done, walk in –

One hand tugging at that scarf, drawing it down, while the other hand undoes the buttons of that shirt –

“ _Hah_ ,” Din’s own hands are trembling, shivers going through him with the effort of all he’s trying to repress. His fingers closing around the base of his cock almost as if someone else moves them, back to feeling outside himself again. Hard enough by now his erection has risen, curving up to point towards his belly, heavy in his hand in a way that feels almost unfamiliar, just as the feeling of his own skin against skin is intense enough to make him near flinch.

It’s been _so long_ since he last touched himself. He can’t remember his cock looking so red before, so swollen and so strained, his balls drawn up tight when he manages to peel his fingers away from his shaft and drop his hand to cup them in his palm instead. Knowing –

Knowing that he should squeeze, and not in a way that his cock would appreciate. That he should do something too sharp or too tight or too forceful, something to kill off the reaction his body is having – that his mind is having – that his whole self is having. Something to crush the arousal he shouldn’t be feeling.

“Uh,” Din closes his fingers around his balls, trembling harder, and pulls gently instead. Just enough to draw them down lower, to drive away the feeling that he’s going to topple over the edge with almost no prompting, just from the frankly embarrassing near overstimulation that comes from his own fumbling touch.

He’s had sex before, that’s the thing. Not for years and not as many times as strangers have taken it upon themselves to conjecture, but he’s never thought of himself as chaste. It’s always been hurried though, just like the furtive scrabbling at himself he occasionally gave into as a guilty youth, any and every experience only ever with the intention of just getting it over and done with. Of not lingering, of never opening his clothes up any further than for access, never with any desire to trade soft words or caresses or – or making eye contact, _kriff_.

He can’t even say whether he was specifically attracted to those he ended up with, in truth; he certainly didn’t crave them touching him in any other sense or he them. The times people did manage to get to his skin under metal and fabric it had almost been off-putting – too much, too like they were trying to dig their way in to find the soft underbelly he couldn’t let himself possess. His approach to sex like any other mission, just doing what was necessary so his body would let him concentrate on other things.

It had never seemed an issue until meeting a man in Mandalorian armour that wasn’t his.

So this right now is a new experience – everything with Cobb is a new experience. Standing naked in someone else’s shower, in his _friend’s_ shower, Din’s hand going out to turn the sonic down to something he can imagine is almost caressing. Positioning his other arm more firmly against the wall to better support his weight as he lowers his head to see the cautious fist his fingers make when they creep down to close around his cock. Imagining despite himself how it might feel if it was someone else’s hand – Cobb’s hand, _fuck_ – doing this for him instead, almost too warm and rough with calluses, fingers strong and longer than his and so _knowing_. Knowing how to coax more and more pleasure out of Din, more than he’s ever felt before; how to make it slow and sweet when he feels like crying out already, how to draw him away from orgasm and then build him back up again even further; how to make his toes curl as he pants, precome easing the drag of his palm as it wells up from the slit.

How to pinch and tease Din’s nipples and pluck at them until he’s squirming as his cock twitches again, hard enough he feels the sensation shoot down not just into his balls but his legs as well, his thighs quivering; how to run his hand up from Din’s chest to curve gently over his throat as he swallows, not squeezing, not pressing down or doing anything except encouraging him to drop his head back against the crook of the taller man’s shoulder.

How to make him come so hard his knees buckle, other hand skidding on the wall until he has to catch himself so not to fall. The silence from the rest of the place beyond the refresher so loud above his racing heartbeat and gasping breaths it’s all he can hear.


End file.
